I am sorry if this is not the correct way to contact you and to make you aware of this issue. Please don't be angry at me, if this should be the case.

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I want to make you aware that something with your MediaWiki installation is seriously wrong. I encountered this bug many times now. At first I thought that I had somehow made an user error, but now I am sure that the problem lies in the software.

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The problem is this:

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Sometimes when I make a small edit to a section of a page, the wiki software throws away everything else in that page, but the section I edited. Only the spam filter mechanism prevents the deletion of nearly all of the pages' contents.

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To illustrate this, I have made archives of the preview page of one of my edits and the answer of the wiki software to my trying to commit it, in MAFF format ( https addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mozilla-archive-format/ ). As MediaWiki didn't let me upload these, you can get them at:

Apart from me not being able to edit certain parts of the wiki, this bug also poses a grave danger to all of the contents of the wiki.

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On a personal note, as a longtime Gentoo user, I was very sad to witness the bad blood and the splitup between you and "the Gentoo community" back then, and I am oh so happy to see that you didn't become so embittered about that, as to cease pursuing your goal of making the best GNU/Linux system for hackers ever. :) I only found out about Funtoo Linux a few weeks ago, and am very keen to start using it soon (installing it at the moment). Keep up the good spirits and the good work! :)

:I didn't do anything special to circumvent the SPAM filter. Wouldn't have dared. The strage thing is, though, that I didn't add or modify ''any'' links.

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:I see what you mean about the apparent strange "deletions" only occuring in the SPAM-protection view, but it's strange that the filter was triggered in the first place even though ''I'' didn't add or modify any links. Probably it checks ''all'' the links in the edited section, even those that I didn't add, and balks if it encounters any that ''I'' am not allowed to add, but that were added by someone else with higher privileges?

::OK, now I understand what you mean. I think that I was able to make some changes, because the changes that I was allowed to make were when I edited sections that included no offending links. I usually don't edit the whole page, but just subsections.

:::I will try switching to the English locale. I will also translate the SPAM-filter message into German, if you provide me with the English text. I can also translate it into Esperanto, if that is wanted.

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:::But now I have to join my family for supper, and then I will go to my local hackerspace, where I will have other duties to attend to. I will probably sleep through the whole of tomorrow, but after that I'd be happy to be of assistance. :-)

Revision as of 18:56, January 9, 2012

Wiki broken :-(

Hello Daniel!

I am sorry if this is not the correct way to contact you and to make you aware of this issue. Please don't be angry at me, if this should be the case.

I want to make you aware that something with your MediaWiki installation is seriously wrong. I encountered this bug many times now. At first I thought that I had somehow made an user error, but now I am sure that the problem lies in the software.

The problem is this:

Sometimes when I make a small edit to a section of a page, the wiki software throws away everything else in that page, but the section I edited. Only the spam filter mechanism prevents the deletion of nearly all of the pages' contents.

To illustrate this, I have made archives of the preview page of one of my edits and the answer of the wiki software to my trying to commit it, in MAFF format ( https addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mozilla-archive-format/ ). As MediaWiki didn't let me upload these, you can get them at:

Apart from me not being able to edit certain parts of the wiki, this bug also poses a grave danger to all of the contents of the wiki.

On a personal note, as a longtime Gentoo user, I was very sad to witness the bad blood and the splitup between you and "the Gentoo community" back then, and I am oh so happy to see that you didn't become so embittered about that, as to cease pursuing your goal of making the best GNU/Linux system for hackers ever. :) I only found out about Funtoo Linux a few weeks ago, and am very keen to start using it soon (installing it at the moment). Keep up the good spirits and the good work! :)

I didn't do anything special to circumvent the SPAM filter. Wouldn't have dared. The strage thing is, though, that I didn't add or modify any links.

I see what you mean about the apparent strange "deletions" only occuring in the SPAM-protection view, but it's strange that the filter was triggered in the first place even though I didn't add or modify any links. Probably it checks all the links in the edited section, even those that I didn't add, and balks if it encounters any that I am not allowed to add, but that were added by someone else with higher privileges?

OK, now I understand what you mean. I think that I was able to make some changes, because the changes that I was allowed to make were when I edited sections that included no offending links. I usually don't edit the whole page, but just subsections.

I will try switching to the English locale. I will also translate the SPAM-filter message into German, if you provide me with the English text. I can also translate it into Esperanto, if that is wanted.

But now I have to join my family for supper, and then I will go to my local hackerspace, where I will have other duties to attend to. I will probably sleep through the whole of tomorrow, but after that I'd be happy to be of assistance. :-)